Introduction

For city dwellers, our ability to move easily within our cities influences our economic opportunities, our health, the people we encounter, and much more. Taken together, urban mobility patterns influence our collective future, as well. For example, changes in mobility patterns in North American cities as a result of sprawl led to increased carbon emissions, accelerated climate change, and, as a result, will continue to alter urban lifestyles across the world for decades to come. Research on urban mobility must always consider economic, social, and environmental justice and avoid simplifications that prioritize economic bottom-lines.

In this brief research proposal, I will first provide an example of how I have used mobility and economic data in the European context, which illustrates the need for individual-level data that is collected thoughtfully and with a justice lens. I will then describe the research I would like to conduct, with Addis Ababa as an initial case study. The outputs of this research would include, of course, peer-reviewed academic publications, but also toolkits and data that can be shared with local leaders and activists. I believe these latter outputs are crucial.

Example: Madrid

My previous research has focused on European cities and investigated relationships between urban geography and sociopolitical attitudes (Kent, 2022; Rodon & Kent, 2023; Kent, 2024a) and relationships between urban land use and human mobility (Kent, 2024b, 65-86). As the following example demonstrates, aggregated mobility data, like that available for Spain, reveals interesting directions for research despite certain unfortunate limitations.

Below is a partial map of flows between districts in Madrid on a typical weekday in 2019 based on data from over 40 million mobile phones collected by the National Statistics Institute of Spain. Classical models of urban mobility, like the gravity model (Zipf, 1946), assume that commuters are drawn toward centers of economic activity or other key hubs (such as hospitals or educational centers). However, the data reveals a great deal of additional complexity, even when aggregated.

One measure of mobility for a given district is the daytime population of the district vs. the nighttime population. Districts with a lower daytime population are subject to outward mobility as many of its residents spend their days seeking opportunities (economic, educational, social, etc.) elsewhere in the city. The map below includes this measure of mobility along with the median household income for each district (toggle between metrics using the layers menu).

Once again, there is no simple, linear pattern. While income seems to decrease in proportion to distance from a few wealthy centers, outward mobility increases with distance only to decrease again at the furthest reaches of the Madrid province. This suggests that residents of the outermost districts, many of which have low household incomes, may determine that the cost of daily mobility outweighs the potential opportunities. The scatterplot below shows that the lowest income communities face a double disadvantage: neither the local opportunities that would draw in others nor the means to seek opportunity elsewhere.

Ultimately, this data leaves more questions than answers. Without individual-level data, we cannot determine the purpose of these daily acts of mobility or see how they vary by gender, level of education, migration status, or other demographic variables of interest. Nor can we ask commuters how they feel about their mobility. Do they travel each day out of choice or perceived necessity? How do their mobility patterns impact their social well being, their health, and their economic situation?

Proposal: Addis Ababa Quantitative Case Study

While the study of urban mobility in Europe is certainly important and provides valuable guidance for social scientists, planners, public health officials, and many others, in African cities answering questions about mobility is even more vital and urgent. Urbanization is occurring at a rapid pace, transportation options are often less efficient (in terms of both time and pollutants) and less safe, and yet mobility is even more important for residents seeking jobs, health care, and educational opportunities. Mobility that reduces economic injustice may only worsen environmental injustice in a part of the world where both problems are critical.

Clean and efficient modes of public transportation seem to provide an excellent opportunity to address both issues. Here, Addis Ababa is a particularly interesting case, as the home to sub-Saharan Africa’s first light rail transit system. The system opened in 2015 and usership rose so quickly that it strained against capacity (Tarrosy and Vörös, 2018). Although, like other African rail projects, Addis Ababa has faced challenges maintaining the light rail (Bouraima et al., 2023), residents believe that the project will make a meaningful difference for future generations while successfully promoting environmental, social, and especially economic sustainability (Sekasi and Martens, 2021). Social sustainability is particularly important for women in Addis Ababa, who are less likely to travel daily and more likely to feel unsafe while travelling, compared to men (Arbuzova et al 2023). Ethiopia’s Ministry for Transport has also issued a “Non-Motorized Transport Strategy,” which aims to improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists in the nation’s largest cities.

I propose a case study of mobility and justice in Addis Ababa using a mobile-phone-based data collection and survey tool developed by Prof. John Palmer (see: https://github.com/JohnPalmer/SpaceMapper). There is very little publicly available data on current mobility patterns in the city, but using district-level population data from 2007 and a gravity model trained on the above data from Madrid, I have produced an estimate of daily flows as shown in the below map. Though this is an interesting experiment and may provide a useful baseline, predicting mobility based on assumptions from European and North American theory and data is almost certainly flawed. Residents of Madrid and Addis Ababa have different mobility needs and options and residents of the Ethiopian capital deserve to be considered within their own context.

Instead of assuming that mobility will follow patterns suggested by the literature, I propose to gather data directly. Participants in the study will share location data from their mobile phones, which will be masked and anonymized appropriately. They will also have the opportunity to answer survey questions about how their mobility relates to issues of social, environmental, and economic justice. Along with socio-demographic questions, surveys can also be issued after trips are taken and include questions such as:

This trip-specific data will add even greater richness to the dataset and answer questions like those that emerged in the Madrid exploration. For example, at what point does the burden of travel outweigh the potential opportunity and how does this vary depending on the purpose of the trip and the characteristics of the person. Under what conditions are women more likely to travel? Are social, health, or economic trips more likely to be prioritized when the distance or cost of the trip is burdensome? Do residents of certain areas of the city feel especially limited due to mobility concerns?

These are some of the questions I would like to answer using the data I propose to gather, but local officials and activists would certainly draw other insights from this data if given the chance. So, part of this project is to present this data publicly and in accessible and interactive forms. The visualizations in this proposal are a small demonstration of what this may look like. Following the completion of this project, the case study of Addis Ababa would inform future projects in other cities, including megacities like Lagos and their exponentially greater complexity.

There is a great need for research on urban mobility in cities with the most pressing and complex challenges, especially those in the Global South. I hope to contribute to this literature while taking a critical perspective and creating resources that can be useful in the cities themselves and to their residents.

References

Arbuzova, A., Getahun, T., Malik, A., & Karra, M. (2023). Gendered differences in mobility and the demand for transport in Ethiopia. IGC Policy Brief. https://www.theigc.org/publications/gendered-differences-mobility-and-demand-transport-ethiopia.

Bouraima, M. B., Alimo, P. K., Agyeman, S., Sumo, P. D., Lartey-Young, G., Ehebrecht, D., & Qiu, Y. (2023). Africa’s railway renaissance and sustainability: Current knowledge, challenges, and prospects. Journal of Transport Geography, 106, 103487.

Kent, J. (2022). Can urban fabric encourage tolerance? Evidence that the structure of cities influences attitudes toward migrants in Europe. Cities, 121, 103494.

Kent, J. (2024a). Does urban design drive sympathy for the far right?. City, Culture and Society, 36, 100553.

Kent, J. (2024b). Urban Fabric Designed for Diversity: How the Structure of Great European Cities Influences Attitudes and Behavior. Doctoral thesis. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/690032

Rodon, T. & Kent, J. (2023). Geographies of EU dissatisfaction: Does spatial segregation between natives and migrants erode the EU project?. Journal of European Public Policy, 1-18.

Sekasi, J. & Martens, M. L. (2021). Assessing the contributions of urban light rail transit to the sustainable development of Addis Ababa. Sustainability, 13(10), 5667.

Tarrosy, I. & Vörös, Z. (2018). China and Ethiopia, Part 1: The Light Railway System. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/china-and-ethiopia-part-1-the-light-railway-system/

Zipf, G. K. (1946). The p1 * p2/d hypothesis: On the intercity movement of persons. American Sociological Review, 11(6):677–686.